psychology Archives - Page 2 of 11

Differential Leadership

The Taiwanese scholar Cheng Bor-Shiuan was among the first to apply Fei Xiaotong’s differential mode of association to Chinese organizations. He proposed the concept of chaxu shi lingdao (差序式领导), differential leadership. In a study published in 1995, he named a typical sign of favoritism among Chinese leaders. They are “generous and understanding toward insiders, strict and demanding toward outsiders.”

A 2018 review in the journal Foreign Economics and Management sums up the concept. Such a leader divides subordinates into “insiders” and “outsiders” by how close the relationship is, how loyal they are and how capable they are.

Paternalistic Leadership

In 2000, the organizational psychologists Farh Jiing-Lih and Cheng Bor-Shiuan published an analysis of paternalistic leadership in Chinese organizations in the Taiwan journal Indigenous Psychological Research. Their model has three parts: authoritarian leadership, benevolent leadership and moral leadership.

A 2021 review in Advances in Psychological Science, published by the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sums up the style as one that combines “absolute authority, elder’s care, and moral role model.”

Three Kinds of Silence

In 2008, four researchers published a study in Acta Psychologica Sinica (心理学报) on the measurement of employee silence in the Chinese context. They surveyed 928 employees with a questionnaire of their own design. They found that employee silence takes three forms: acquiescent silence, indifferent silence and defensive silence.

Trust in the superior reduced all three. Trust in the organization reduced only the first two. It had no significant effect on defensive silence.

Face and Favor

The psychologist Hwang Kwang-kuo built a model of how Chinese people decide on a request. Starting from Fei Xiaotong’s idea of ties that are closer or more distant, he divides relationships into three kinds: expressive, mixed and instrumental.

Each kind follows its own rule. For expressive ties, the rule of need applies. For instrumental ties, the rule of fairness applies. For mixed ties, the person who controls the resource follows the rule of renqing (人情). He weighs what helping would cost against the return that may come in the future.

Go Around

On May 22, 2010, Air India Express Flight 812 crashed while landing at Mangalore. The cockpit recorder had “co-pilot Captain HS Ahluwalia” “telling Captain Glusica thrice to go around,” the Deccan Herald reported.

The investigation noted: “Although company SOP empowered the first officer to assume control and discontinue the approach, he did not do so.”

The Nurturant Task Leader

In 1980 the Indian psychologist Jai B.P. Sinha described the nurturant task leader. In Sinha’s words, such a leader “cares for his subordinates, shows affection, takes personal interest in their well-being.” A 1990 summary of the model by the researcher Ansari adds that the leader makes this care “contingent on the subordinate’s task accomplishment.”

The model describes subordinates who “depend excessively on their superiors for directions, guidance, and support,” and who prefer a personal relationship with the leader to a contractual one.

The Nurturant Task Leader

In 1980 the Indian psychologist Jai B.P. Sinha described a type of leader he called the nurturant task leader. In his words, this leader “cares for his subordinates, shows affection, takes personal interest in their well-being.”

The care comes with a condition. A summary by the psychologist Ansari puts it this way: the leader “makes his or her nurturance contingent on the subordinate’s task accomplishment.”

E + R = O

The first principle in Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles is “Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life.” Canfield puts it in a formula: “E + R = O stands for Event + Response = Outcome.”

He draws the conclusion for his readers: “So what you have to do is change your response to get the outcome you want.”

The Road to Abilene

In 1974 the management scholar Jerry B. Harvey published “The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement.” It begins with a family in Coleman, Texas, playing dominoes. The father-in-law suggests driving 50 miles to Abilene for dinner. “Sounds like a great idea,” says the wife. “Sounds good to me,” says the husband. “Of course I want to go,” says the mother-in-law.

The trip is miserable. Back home, each of them admits that they never wanted to go. Each had gone along with what they thought the others wanted.

The Lines

In the early 1950s, the psychologist Solomon Asch asked students at Swarthmore College to take what they thought was a vision test. They had to say which of three lines matched the length of another line. The answer was obvious. But the other people in the room were Asch’s assistants, and on some rounds they all gave the same wrong answer out loud.

About 75 percent of the real participants went along with the wrong answer at least once.